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The only progressive in the TO Mayor race is Olivia Chow

Posted by Scott Tribe on March 17, 2014, at 7:37 am |

Municipal politics are an interesting political arena. You have much more of a political ideological mix here, which you don’t necessarily have for the federal or provincial arenas. So it is for the Toronto Mayor race.

All the political candidates lean right-of-centre, with the exception of one candidate; that would be Olivia Chow, ex-NDP MP of Toronto’s Trinity-Spadina riding, and of course, the widow and wife of Jack Layton, former NDP leader. From where I sit, the choice for political progressives (which includes left of centre “liberal” Liberals) is obvious; Olivia Chow should be the choice of those voters; as there is no one else in this bunch that would exhibit any notion of progressive politics or policies.

What of John Tory – the so called “Red Tory”? I’ve never found him to be as progressive in his thinking or ideology as he or his supporters claim. His political strategy over the last few years has also been extremely questionable, and he’s never managed to win a political race he was in when it counted. Rob Ford, I don’t need to discuss what I think of him, and the rest (Stinz et. al.) were former supporters of Ford before his scandals.

So yes, this is one of the few times as a Liberal voter and LPC Party member I’ll endorse an NDP for office, but as I said, this is municipal politics, not federal or provincial. If there was a “liberal” alternative, I’d have looked there, but as there is not, I hope Chow will win this race and bring not only some dignity back to the Mayor’s Office (which shouldn’t be hard to do), but some progressive politics for the city’s policies.